Mechanical and semantic knowledge mediate the implicit understanding of the physical world.

Most recent accounts highlight the importance of two aspects of cognition in the implicit understanding of the physical world: semantic knowledge (the ability to recognize, categorize, and relate concepts) and mechanical knowledge (the capability to comprehend how things mechanically work). However, how the human brain may integrate these cognitive processes remains largely unexplored. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate this integration employing a novel free-viewing task.

Two distinct neural pathways for mechanical versus digital technology.

Technology pervades every aspect of our lives, making it crucial to investigate how the human mind deals with it. Here we examine the cognitive and neural foundations of technological cognition. In the first fMRI experiment, participants viewed videos depicting the use of mechanical tools (e.

The fear of COVID-19 contagion: an exploratory EEG-fMRI study.

Pandemics have the potential to change how people behave and feel. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception; thus, it may serve as a "challenging context" for understanding how pandemics affect people's minds. In this study, we used high-density electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural correlates of fear of contagion during the most critical moments of COVID-19 in Italy (i.

On the functional brain networks involved in tool-related action understanding.

Tool-use skills represent a significant cognitive leap in human evolution, playing a crucial role in the emergence of complex technologies. Yet, the neural mechanisms underlying such capabilities are still debated. Here we explore with fMRI the functional brain networks involved in tool-related action understanding.

The Area Prostriata may play a role in technical reasoning.

Most recent research indicated how technical reasoning (TR), namely, a specific form of causal reasoning aimed at understanding the physical world, may support the development of tools and technologies of increasing complexity. We have recently identified the Area PF of the left inferior parietal lobe (PF) as a critical structural correlate of TR, as assessed by using two ad-hoc psycho-technical tests evaluating the two main aspects of TR, i.e.

The cortical thickness of the area PF of the left inferior parietal cortex mediates technical-reasoning skills.

Most recent research highlights how a specific form of causal understanding, namely technical reasoning, may support the increasing complexity of tools and techniques developed by humans over generations, i.e., the cumulative technological culture (CTC).

The visual encoding of graspable unfamiliar objects.

We explored by eye-tracking the visual encoding modalities of participants (N = 20) involved in a free-observation task in which three repetitions of ten unfamiliar graspable objects were administered. Then, we analysed the temporal allocation (t = 1500 ms) of visual-spatial attention to objects' manipulation (i.e.

How the fear of COVID-19 changed the way we look at human faces.

Do we look at persons currently or previously affected by COVID-19 the same way as we do with healthy ones? In this eye-tracking study, we investigated how participants ( = 54) looked at faces of individuals presented as "COVID-19 Free", "Sick with COVID-19", or "Recovered from COVID-19". Results showed that participants tend to look at the eyes of COVID-19-free faces longer than at those of both COVID-19-related faces. Crucially, we also found an increase of visual attention for the mouth of the COVID-19-related faces, possibly due to the threatening characterisation of such area as a transmission vehicle for SARS-CoV-2.

Psychometric properties of the STAI-Y scales and normative data in an Italian elderly population.

Background: Early detection of anxiety symptoms in older people is capital as it may be linked to increased physical/functional disabilities, onset and progression of neurodegenerative disorders, and poor cognitive functioning. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of psychometrically validated anxiety measures in the elderly.

Aims: This study aimed at assessing the psychometric properties of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Form Y (STAI-Y) and providing the first normative data for the Italian elderly population.

Effects of self-generated versus experimenter-provided cues on the representation of future events.

Most experimental studies of prospection focused on episodic forms of future events prompted by means of verbal cues. However, there is evidence suggesting that future events differ considerably according to whether they are produced in response to external, experimenter-provided verbal cues or they are self-generated. In the present study, we compared the quality, the phenomenal characteristics, the temporal distribution, and the content of imagined events prompted by experimenter-provided cues (i.

Future thinking in Parkinson's disease: an executive function?

Contrary to what was originally thought (Hassabis, Kumaran, Vann, & Maguire, 2007) recent data have shown that imagining the future is not entirely dependent on the hippocampus (Squire et al., 2010) and neuroimaging studies have demonstrated a frontopolar activation during future thinking tasks (Okuda et al., 2003).